Sunday, November 29, 2015

Friday, November 27, 2015

I am not sure what drew me to this book. I know nothing about chess and the book was chock full of chess matches. I was unable to follow the moves and,
in fact, had never heard of terms like the "middle game" before. Beth, an orphan, is taught chess by the janitor at the school/orphanage where she lives. She begs him to learn and at once excels. Once adopted, her adopted mother uses (in a benign way) her ability to support them. Both of them are in flight from any real world.
We follow Beth from match to match across the years. She picks up some bad habits in terms of substance abuse along the way. An interesting book about a child prodigy and how she makes the jump to an adult champion. Highly recommended especially for those who play the game.
Tevis also wrote THE HUSTLER and THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Directed by John Houston and based on the novella by Carson McCullers, this is a film that is probably too much for most people (like me). What was interesting and odd and beautifully written in the novel, became sinister, frightening. hysterical (in its true meaning) and occasionally laughable in the movie IMHO. Never a fan of either Liz Taylor or Marlon Brando's acting styles, I should have known this was not the film for me. Anyone see it?
I am still looking for a film where Brando (or Taylor) works for me. Brando comes closest in STREETCAR but even there his hysteria, suited to that film, I guess, wears on me. Brian Keith is the saving grace in REFLECTIONS.

"Monologue of a Universal Transverse Mercator Projection" by Yumeaki Hirayama from Hanzai Japan

Yumeaki Hirayama’s debut as a novelist came in 1996 with the
psycho-thriller Sinker—shizumu mono (Sinker). In 2006 he won the Mystery
Writers of Japan Award for Short Stories with Dokuhaku suru yunibasaru
yoko merukatoru (The Universal Transverse Mercator Speaks), and his
collection of the same title took first place in the 2007 Konomys
rankings. He won the Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize in 2009,
and the Haruhiko Oyabu Award in 2011, for his noir novel Diner, set in a
restaurant where professional hit men gather. Among his other works is
the 2011 story collection An Outsider’s Death (original English title).
Hirayama’s story in HANZAI JAPAN, “Monologue of a Universal
Transverse Mercator Projection” looks to be related to his prize
-winning collection. The anthology’s goal was to collect stories that
managed to be both speculative and crime-oriented. The introduction
advises us that Japanese crime writers enjoyed subverting the genre from
the earliest days. And the combination here makes the likelihood even
greater. The use of the supernatural adds some nice seasoning to crime
stories. And the story of a crime can provide a fulcrum to science fiction.
In this story, the protagonist is a map. Though given the nature of
the collection you might expect this to be a futuristic global
navigation system, instead it is an ordinary paper map. Ordinary in
appearance, that is. But this map has the ability through inner maps to
provide supernatural guidance for its owner, a taxi driver. It can
rearrange itself to provide a route to suit a need. This anthromorphized
map functions as a sidekick.
Crime enters the tale when the taxi driver begins murdering then
hiding the bodies of female passengers. The map makes himself an
accomplice by finding burial sites that will go undetected. When the
master (as the map calls him) dies, the story only grows more complex.
It is impossible not to admire this story. The abilities of the map
have been laid out with great imagination and care. The consistency of
the idea is thrilling. The murders take place off screen and are of much
less interest than the relationship that exists between the map and the
taxi driver(s). Highly recommended for fans of superb writing.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Meeting new people in a new neighborhood I have found out something that I should have known. If we meet someone who reads, especially fiction, and someone who is a movie watcher, we become friends almost at once. We have so much to talk about right from the beginning.

Whereas if our only bond is living on the same street, what's there to say after comparing where we came from?

I can almost claim to be instantly closer friends with a new person that reads than older ones who do not. Do you find this? Are your closest friends readers?

Rick Robinson suggested this when I said I was having trouble finding the right book for this topic. And I enjoyed it. A few gripes though-so many of the people I have grown to love from the TV series are not in here. It is basically Walt's stories with a bit of Cady. And he is somewhat different in temperament from the man I love on TV.

Here's a summary of the four stories.

"Ministerial
Aid" takes place soon after the death of Martha Longmire and Sheriff Walt Longmire is in bad shape as he hand delivers a paycheck to his deputy. An abused woman mistakes him for Jesus.

"Slick Tongued
Devil." Martha Longmire's death is reported anew years later by a careless newspaper employee and Walt is approached by a con man who sells bibles to the bereaved claiming the loved one had ordered it. Sad and beautifully told.

"Toys For Tots." A grumpy Sheriff
Waltmire befriends the young Navy chaplain manning a Toys For Tots box. Walt takes advantage of a situation to make the chaplain into a hero, restoring his self-esteem.

"Unbalanced" On his way to pick up his daughter Cady at the Billings
airport, Sheriff Longmire stops offers a ride to a
half-frozen young woman. Walt figures out she is on the run from a mental hospital and manages to wrest a gun away from her.

Each story in some way reflects on the spirit of Christmas. These are slight stories but well told.

I am not sure if the Walt Longmire in the novels is as different as this one is from the one on the series. I think hearing his interior voice makes him feel grumpier and more reflective than the Walt on the show. At the end of the four stories a long section from THE COLD DISH appears. I am not sure I want to read it because I like Longmire the way I find him played by Robert Walker.

Does this happen to you? Do you have trouble moving from book to TV or vice versa?

Megan's story is the first one and you can read it on the Amazon site if you open the book. There are also seventeen other stories included by various crime fiction writers. This is in the style of the stories Megan wrote before producing more contemporary work. It is charming if I do say so.
Otto Penzler gives individual stories away to customers at Christmas. He has a new one each year. Or at least he did in 2010 and before. This collects the first 17.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Margaret Laurence, one of my favorite writers, penned the original novel, A JEST OF GOD. Paul Newman directed his wife as a lonely spinster schoolteacher in rural Canada. A sad story as are all of MLs books.This film boasts the formidable trio of Geraldine Fitzgerald, Estelle Parsons and Woodward, all who emote to beat the band. A bit overwrought but still, how often do we see films about women over 35?

Monday, November 16, 2015

What are some of the books or authors that fall between cozies and dark crime fiction? I don't want to see Colonel Mustard do it with poison in the library. But I also don't want a savage killer on the loose with lots of mutilated bodies. It seems like every book I pick up falls in one category or the other.Suggestions?

Friday, November 13, 2015

Next week we will have some reviews of books featuring a winter holiday.

(Ed Gorman)

The early Maigret detective novels by Georges Simenon bear the stamp of
the busy pulp writer Simenon he was before finding his voice and mission
with the cranky even surly Commissaire.

In the Yellow Dog, a particularly well-plotted crime novel, Maigret
travels to the small coastal town of Concarneau where a local wine
merchant has been murdered under mysterious circumstances. According to a
witness the man was strolling home on a windy night and paused to walk
up steps leading to the narrow sheltered porch of a long empty house.
Moments later the man fell backwards, dead from the shots.

Once there Maigret meets the four men and one waitress who seem to know
much more than they're willing to share with him. He also sees a large
yellow dog that keeps appearing at the crime scenes to come. Maigret
feels a kinship with the animal which is more than he can say for
anybody he meets in the town.

Where did the dog come from? Why does he keep showing up at such odd
moments? Does he belong to the person who by book's end kills more
people?

This is a serial killer novel. Simenon even casts the local newspaper as
one of the villains. The editor has a history of exploiting bad news to
the point of making each local tragedy worse. And the killings are no
exception. Simenon suggests that it is sop for Frenchmen to a) have
mistresses and b) go about armed. Both are factors in the
investigation.

Most of the elements of classic Maigret are here. The weather is as
vivid as the characters; Simenon buttresses his sociological look at
French life with bleak humor; and his pity for decent people life has
treated badly borders on the religious along with his contempt for
pomposity and self-importance and cruelty.

There is always a claustrophobic feel to the Maigrets; this allows the
reader to experience what the Inspector himself does. As a forlorn
chronicler of humankind Simenon is still without peer.

Somewhat Forgotten Books That Made Me a Crime Fiction Reader. (Tomorrow it would be different titles) Patti Abbott

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

HARTWIG, GLENN ROYCitation:
The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross
to Glenn Roy Hartwig, Commander, U.S. Navy, for extraordinary heroism and
distinguished service in the line of this profession as Commanding Officer of
the Destroyer U.S.S. RUSSELL (DD-414), during the engagement with enemy
Japanese forces north of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942. After
enemy bombs and torpedoes had seriously damaged the task force carrier
resulting in raging fires and a dangerous list on that vessel, Commander
Hartwig skillfully brought his ship alongside in a most seamanlike manner to
assist in fighting fires on board with every means at his command. Although
driven away by further enemy air attacks, he repeatedly returned to the side
of the stricken carrier to continue rendering effective assistance. Later he
maneuvered in the vicinity of the ship to evacuate and rescue survivors. His
gallantry and intrepidity in action were in keeping with the highest
traditions of the Naval Service.Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin
No. 314 (May 1943)
Born: March 30, 1904 at Detroit, Michigan
Home Town: Highland Park, Michigan

I hate to talk on the phone. There, I said it. I hated it as a teenager and I hate it today. People say how often do you talk to your kids. Well, not very much. They hate it too. Only Phil likes long phone chats. The rest of us email or text.

Guess what my first job was--a service rep for Bell of PA. On the phone all day, but that didn't bother me as much as talking to people I know.

I used to think it was a cord thing. I could only go so far, but then they went and made longer cords and then they went and made cordless phones and then they went and said, "You have to carry it with you."

Carry it with you? This means your doctor's office can call you while you're walking down the street. You are never out of touch. Does anyone think this is a good thing? Not me. I love being out of touch.

Want me, email. But I won't answer it on my phone. I will answer it when I get home and sit down at this computer. That is my safe haven. Or this is because I am here now.

Cause I hate to talk on the phone even electronically.

How about you? Have you phone habits changed over the years? Are you an inveterate phone chatter?

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

THE LONELY is usually chosen as one of the top ten or twenty TWILIGHT ZONE episodes. And I can see that. It's is fairly credible that a future society might imprison criminals on distant pieces of sky. And also credible they might provide them with robotic company. Jack Warden plays the lonely prisoner and his musings are poetic and poignant. Jean Marsh plays the robot who comes to provide companionship.

But this episode went sour on me at the end. The ending I expected was that it would turn out that she was an invention of his loneliness and once rescued he would not need her any longer and let her go.
Instead Sterling chooses to have an astronaut blast her in the face, exposing her mechanical parts, and Warden accepts this all too easily. A romantic episode that went awry in my book. Boo! Hiss!

Endings on TTZ were the most problematic feature as I rewatch some of them. O'Henry endings are all too common. What do you think?

Monday, November 09, 2015

Welcome Back, Jack came from close to home. It was my first
full-fledged crime novel, a police procedural set in New
Rhodes, a city in the Capital Region of New York. It’s a fictional city, but
it’s largely based on Troy, N.Y., the “Home of Uncle Sam.”

I wanted to take the truth of the city, and expand on it,
blow it up to fictional proportions. Troy was an industrial city when industry
first came to America, and that’s reflected in the tunnel system that forms the
killer’s nesting ground. In fact, Troy had its own serial killer, a man named
Gary Evans, who was on record for killing eight, though that number is likely
higher. In fact, one of the bodies was buried in the swamps behind my house
when I lived there.

With Jack, I wanted a rough character, but I wanted to avoid
the Dirty Harry archetype. Jack smokes, but he struggles with it. He drinks,
but he’s not a lush. And he takes chances, but it’s a part of his flaws, not a
badge of honor, and he pays for it.

Welcome Back, Jack is a hard-boiled police procedural. I did
a ton of research on police procedure, going even as far as the psychology of
serial killer investigations. And it was a balancing act, figuring out where
the creative license should be applied. A multi-agency task force, like the one
in my book, has its own problems, and its own pace. And the pace of a task force
and the pace of a novel are miles apart.

Trying to realistically portray the serial killer
investigation was interesting, and it taught me something. Good, workable leads
don’t come in every five minutes like they do on a TV show, or every third page
like they do in a novel. Adjusting investigations to novels, or especially
screenplays, have real-world effects. For example, shows like CSI and Law and
Order influence juries in actual criminal cases, where people are acquitted
because there’s no expert testimony, DNA, or literal smoking guns.

When I was writing Welcome Back, Jack, I didn’t have to
worry too much about the “CSI Effect”; my killer left too much evidence – it
was all in connecting it to him. But there were parts where the DNA came back
far sooner than it would have. As a rule, in New York, “top-of-the-pile” DNA
evidence still takes about two months.

All in all, I hope that I struck a balance between what
could have happened and what did happen on the page. And I hope anyone who
reads it buckles up.

Saturday, November 07, 2015

We usually assign a grade to a movie and if Kevin goes with us, he does too. He gave this one a 0. (He is a hard grader). But I could see his point. The entire movie was about romance. Charlie Brown and the girl with red hair and Snoopy and Fifi, a french poodle. How many eight year old boys want to see a movie about romance.

This leads me to the question, who was this movie intended for? Is it nostalgia for people over forty that remember PEANUTS in its heyday? Would those people really spend the money to see a 90 minute version of those 30 minute shows?

For Kevin, it was complete mystery. A typewriter? What is that? Why do the girls all wear dresses? Why does that phone have a cord? Kids young enough to be interested in the antics of eight year olds can't make enough quick translations to see the world of Peanuts as anything less than mysterious. They are too young to get quaint.

The one thing that still might work is that most kids can identify with Charlie Brown and his insecurity. But 90 minutes of this and he seems more self-pitying than sympathetic.

Friday, November 06, 2015

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. By Paul Malmont (from the archives by Bill Peschel)

In
the 1930s, the heyday of the pulp era, magazines like "Thrilling
Detective," "Amazing Stories" and the like kicked ass, took names, and
shaped the morals of millions of American readers. The writers who
created the heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow worked under
impossible deadlines
for pennies a word to give us tales of the fantastic, of Oriental
criminal gangs, dens of vice and iniquity, weird villains, two-fisted
heroes and dames to be ornamental and rescued. At its height, as a
pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard reminds us in "The Chinatown Death Cloud
Peril," 30,000,000 pulps were bought every month. It took the paper
shortages of World War II to knock them down, and they were finished off
by television in the ‘50s, but they left us a legacy of heroes that
include Conan and Tarzan, cult favorite H.P. Lovecraft, and provided the
seed that spawned science-fiction and fantasy.Return with me, now, to
those thrilling days of yesteryear, with the help of Paul Malmont, who,
according to his bio, works in advertising and lives in Brooklyn with
his wife and two kids.I'm firmly convinced that, at night, he slips out
of his brownstone in Park Slope and roams the wilds of Manhattan,
battling the forces of evil with mad crimefighting skillz he learned in
the mountain fastnesses of Bhutan.Either that, or he's a pulp fiction
fan who did a wonderful job of researching the era, and clever enough to
cast as his heroes the writers Walter Gibson, Lester Dent, Hubbard
(known as "The Flash" because he was quick at the typewriter), with
guest appearances by Lovecraft (oh, how I want to tell you how he
appears. It's so appropriate!), E.E. "Doc" Smith and Orson Welles.As for
the story, well, the title gives it away, and I'm not going to say
more. If you're going to read this, it would just spoil the fun. But if
you're still on the bubble, I'll say this:
Malmont writes about the pulp fiction world, but the story is told straight. Neat. No purple prose.
The plot makes sense. It's creepy and scary, but doesn't rely on the supernatural.
The writers may have created two-fisted heroes, but they aren't. That's part of the fun.
Malmont
plays fair with Hubbard. I'm no fan of Scientology, but I was glad that
Hubbard is presented just as you would expect him to be at the
beginning of his career. He's ambitious, proud, something of a blowhard,
but great sidekick material.
To say more would give away the fun, so
let me just say that, if you have any affection for the pulp era, if
you smile at the thought of a "GalaxyQuest"-type story set in New York
of the Depression-era, or just want a rousing tale without the literary
baggage, check out "The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril."UPDATE: Thanks to
Kaja Foglio, the co-creator of the fabulous "Girl Genius" comic, I found out that Lester Dent's Zeppelin tales are being republished.

Tuesday, November 03, 2015

To all the people who come here and have taken the time to write a review on their blog, posted a review on amazon or good reads, interviewed me, etc. re: CONCRETE ANGEL.

My real world friends, many of whom have read the book, do not understand the way things are done now so I have been totally reliant on my online friends. But I never dreamed that so many of you would do so much to help me. A million thanks and let me return the favor if you think of a way I can be useful.

I shouldn't have loved Leave It to Beaver
as much as I did because it was routinely pointed out to me by my
grandmother that I didn't measure up to Wally and the Beaver. I didn't
use Sir and M'am nearly enough. My table manners were not as good at
theirs. I wasn't always washing my hands (they spent an inordinate
amount of time in that bathroom off their bedroom). I wasn't nearly as
tidy in my dress. (Having so many scenes in a bathroom seems unusual).

But
her words didn't have much of an impact (gradmothers did a lot of
scolding in those days). I liked the show then and still do now. Leave it to Beaver ran from 1957 to 1963 and was written by Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly, who'd earlier written the Amos and Andy radio show and would later write The Munsters.
It starred Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver, Barbara Billingsley as June,
Tony Dow as Wally and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver. Why "the" in front of
Beaver, I don't know, but it was used quite a lot.

Set in the
town of Mayfield, Anywhere, the Cleavers were an upper middle class
suburban family that probably mirrored very few of the lives of its
viewers. Their life was a bit too easy financially, a bit too neat and
tidy. The infamous pearls and dresses June wore were unfamiliar to most
of us although I remember my mother getting dressed for dinner in the
fifties.

What made it special was that so much of LITB was from the POV of the boys. The writers were on their
side and seldom let them behave unrealistically, never let them
flounder too much in their stunts. They assumed as we did that their
motives were good and age-appropriate. It was easy to imagine myself in
such a jam. (Although I would never climbed up into that cup on a
billboard or let a homeless guy into the house).

The Cleaver
parents were also subjected to the writers' microscope and made their
share of parenting mistakes. They worried about such things routinely,
re-thought poor decisions they had made, and corrected them. June always
reminded Ward that boys today were different from those in his rural
youth. Ward reminded June that boarding school was different from
Mayfield Public High.

The show hummed due to its writing and it
holds up very well today because it was never overly sanctimonious or
too sure-footed in its view of the world. The writers were not afraid to
make each Cleaver and his friends and neighbors look fairly ridiculous
from time to time. If Eddie Haskell has endured as the case study of
"bad influence" the Cleavers assumed they had raised a son smart enough
to shake it off. How progressive was that!

I was exactly Beaver's
age and had a mad crush on Wally, as did every girl I knew. An
autographed picture of Wally hung on my wall. "Find a boy like Wally
Cleever," must have been uttered more than once over those years and
reportedly, he is as nice in person as on the show. No one offered the
same advice about Beaver, who was much more like the rest of us.

I
watched an early episode last week: Wally comes home from the
barbershop with a ridiculous haircut, which all the boys have. June
cannot let go of this and even sees the principal about it. (Something
that would soon play out in many homes across the country). The show
cleverly played a bit of rock music every time Wally or other boys with
this haircut entered the room. In this show, June was allowed to be
imperfect. How can you not like a show where everyone is allowed such a
thing. It was the conforming fifties, but the Cleavers (or their
writers) managed to sneak in a little bit more. Never sanctimonious,
never out of touch, it plays well for me today.

Monday, November 02, 2015

I
have good friends who will go to virtually any movie with Johnny Depp or Helen Mirren.
Other friends who wouldn't miss a movie directed by Scorsese. One or two
who never miss a romantic comedy. And there's those (a lot of them!)
who like movies about causes, injustices, third world suffering.

With
me, it's the critical word. If a movie gets good reviews, I will see it
regardless of the subject, director, stars. I can never be convinced
that if a movie scores over 85% on rotten tomatoes, I might not
like it.

What's your Achilles' Heel? What takes you into a theater or onto netflix most of the time?

About Me

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two print novels CONCRETE ANGEL (2015) and SHOT IN DETROIT (2016)(Polis Books). CONCRETE ANGEL was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award in 2016. SHOT IN DETROIT was nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. A collection of her stories I BRING SORROW AND OTHER STORIES OF TRANSGRESSION will appear in 2018.